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Make a 100ft Glow Stick

Introduction: Make a 100ft Glow Stick

How to make a 100 ft glow stick. Just in time for Halloween. Brighter than Electroluminescent wire and self-powered. This can be used to decorate, glow stuff up, or create all kinds of awesome effects.

Warning: TCPO is carcinogenic and you should wear gloves and masks while working with it.

The procedure is simple, mix together:

500mg of 9,10-bis(phenylethynyl)anthracene 17g of TCPO (Also known as bis(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl)oxalate)500mL of diethyl phthalate solvent

Heat it up until it dissolves. Then top it up to about 2.1 liters and add 120mL of hydrogen peroxide and 10g of sodium acetate. Shake thoroughly and draw into a 100 ft glow stick with an inner diameter of 3/8". Suction by a vacuum pump is recommended.

To prevent spilling the ends should be capped with brass or plastic compression fittings. Leave 5+ feet of space in the tube to allow for expansion of the chemicals depending on temperature.

Glow stick will last for about 6 hours. Use more TCPO if a longer glow is needed.

Congrats, now you have a 100 foot glow stick.

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I couldn't submit this to the Halloween contest. But i hope all of you still enjoy it anyway :)

Yeah, all you need to do is change the dye to something else and it will glow a different color. But it has to be a fluorescent dye because the TCPO transfers its energy to other molecules and behaves like UV light (although not *actually* UV) so it only makes flourescent dyes glow. Because of this, if you omit the dye it will have nothing to transfer to and the energy is lost as heat.

so if you don't add the 9,10-bis(phenylethynyl)anthracene it will simply be dark and do NOTHING visible.

Make enough to; 1) Wrap the Empire State Building, 2) The Golden (or your desired color) Gate Bridge, 3) outline the Grand Canyon, 4) tie a mile or two to a passenger type hot air balloon, 5) outline the US boarder all the way around(Now thats allot of glow stick), 6) install on the edges of Jumbo Jet for really cool night flights, 7) attach to edges of a wind-mill or.... I know, I know!!! Cut them up in small sections, 4 to 8 inches with a breakable vial of the stuff that activates....wait. What? They already have that? Well, never mind.

Wish I had paid more attention to chemistry in high-school.

Great N-Structable!

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